Director Justin Lin reveals Star Trek Beyond title on Twitter

We love Star Trek. There’s no doubt at all that it has inspired and changed the tech landscape as well as society as a whole in its near fifty year history, and many of the devices we write about here at the Gadget Helpline might not be quite as awesome as they are without the influence of the shows and spin-off movies. Try imagining the modern mobile phone without Kirk’s communicator or the Apple iPad without Picard’s PADD computer – They simply wouldn’t exist as we know them.

Now, with a new film on the horizon and expected for release on July 8th 2016, little over a year away, we fans of the space saga have been a-buzz with speculation on what exciting technologies and visual treats we’re going to see next – and importantly, what it’ll actually be called..

The previous instalment, the 2013 sequel to the 2009 reboot of the 1960s TV show, broke the Federation standard when it was announced as Star Trek Into Darkness – no colons, no hyphens just a statement. And let’s face it, with the whole Earth put on notice by Benedict Cumberbatch as the verbally vindictive and vengeance driven main antagonist it did get pretty dark.

We now know the new movie will follow a similar titling formula and director Justin Lin has confirmed via Twitter that the next voyage will be called Star Trek Beyond.

Just like the last flick the name is believed to be reflected in the Simon Pegg scripted story, which despite being guarded by Starfleet’s finest security officers, is hinted to take Chris Pine’s Captain Kirk, Zachary Quinto’s Mister Spock and the rest of the U.S.S Enterprise crew beyond anything we’ve seen from the series before. Klingons and Romulans are of course set to cause troubles, but it’s also thought that we’ll bear witness to brand new species and technologies that will put nerds and gadget fans into frenzy.

As well as giving away the title in his hashtags, Lin also tweets the first official photo for Star Trek Beyond, which shows a Starfleet insignia badge with star background sewn onto a blue uniform commonly worn by science officers including Spock. This could suggest the Vulcan will again play a key role or could simply be a salute to the role’s original actor Leonard Nimoy who passed away in February.